The absence of good will in Syria’s armed opposition and of a common platform in the camp opposed to the Bashar al Assad regime are obstructing efforts to prepare a conference on Syrian settlement in Geneva, said President Vladimir Putin.

A new UN report into human rights violations in Syria, including the use of chemical weapons, on Tuesday drew criticism from Russia. In a statement posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry website, permanent representative to the UN in Geneva Alexei Borodavkin urged the UN commission of inquiry into human rights violations in Syria to be more objective.
He said that, although the report rightly details war crimes committed by anti-government armed groups, it places an undue burden of guilt on forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad for the continuation of the conflict.
He also questioned the extent to which the UN commission made equal efforts to contact witnesses to alleged atrocities on each side. The advance unedited version of the report by the UN commission was published on Tuesday.
It covers the period January 15 to May 15, and says it bases its findings on witness testimony from people in Syria and the region. It says that ”war crimes and crimes against humanity have become a daily reality in Syria, where the harrowing accounts of victims have seared themselves on our conscience.”
One of the report’s key findings is that there are ”reasonable grounds” to believe that chemical weapons have been used in the Syrian conflict.

The practice of targeting a civilian population by outsiders in order to achieve political objectives such as regime change is fast heading for the dustbin of history given its blatant violation of all norms of international humanitarian law and common decency reflected in the values of most societies.
This week revealed on which side of history the European Union has chosen to anchor itself on the issue of targeting civilian populations in a blatant attempt to achieve regime change. It affirmatively voted “to renew all the economic sanctions already in place against the Syrian government.”